Study on Content of Heavy Metals and Harmful Elements in Calcitum from Different Regions
不同产地寒水石中重金属及有害元素的含量研究

This study was aimed to establish the determination method for the trace of heavy metals and harmful elements in Calcitum in order to study the distribution of trace element in Calcitum from different regions. Samples were digested with the wet-method. The graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GFAAS) was used to determine the content of lead, cadmium and copper. The atomic fluorescence spectrometry (AFS) was used for determination of arsenic and mercury. The results showed that the average recoveries of five elements were between 90% and 104.5% for the developed method. While the RSD values of precision were less than 2%. The limit of detection (LOD) values for lead, cadmium, copper, arsenic and mercury were 0.2, 0.06, 0.50, 1.25×10-3, 1.43×10-3 ug/g, respectively. Referring to the standard limit set up for mineral medicine cypsum fibrosum in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia (2010 edition), it was found that the contained arsenic level of 10.34% in investigated samples was higher than the standard limit. Comparing to standard limit for plant medicine, it was found that there were 3.45% of the south Calcitum samples with higher mercury and 13.79% of both north and south Calcitum with high cadmium than the limits. No clear differences were observed for the contents of trace heavy metals and harmful elements between north and south Calcitum. It was concluded that the developed method was fast, accurate, sensitive and applicable for the content determination of trace harmful elements in Calcitum. The obtained data are useful for further investigating the composition of inorganic element in Calcitum. This method improves the quality control of Calcitum.